


And While Our Paths Have Diverged--

by Evesi



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Assassin's Creed III, Gen, Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evesi/pseuds/Evesi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raised as a Templar, he was and always would be his father's son, and it did not matter that he now wore an Assassin's robes. Family was the bond that could not be severed, could not be broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And While Our Paths Have Diverged--

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt on the AssCreed kink meme: _AU. Connor grows up with Haytham and their relationship is very close. But, for some reason, Connor ends up joining the Assassins anyways. Events similar to AC3 still happen. And right before Fort George, both Haytham and Connor realizes that, despite their continuing father/son love (purely platonic here), they will need to kill the other for the good of their respective organizations._
> 
> _Either Connor kills Haytham (tears running down his face as Haytham dies) or Haytham kills Connor (devastated the entire time). The winner holds the loser as the cannons explode around them. The winner stays even as he sees a cannonball coming right at him, preferring death to living in a world without his father/son._

Cannonfire surrounded him, leaving gaping holes in buildings and forming craters in the ground. The air filled with ash and smoke, and despite the pounding of blood in his ears, Connor thought he could hear the screams of men fleeing the scene. His heart hammered in his chest, and he ran and ran and--

_\--ran. Ratonhnhaké:ton had to find his mother, had to get to their home, had to save her._

_The village was on fire, and he was screaming, shouting, begging for the man to release him from his grasp. His mother was still inside; he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her burn alive, couldn’t bear the thought of living without her. It didn’t seem to matter how much he beat at the arms that held him, Ratonhnhaké:ton was powerless to escape his captor’s embrace._

_He was saying something, his accent strange, but Ratonhnhaké:ton did not need to comprehend the words being uttered to understand that the expression he wore was one of loss and unspoken--_

\--Pain forced Connor to his knees and blurred his vision. He grunted and slammed his fist into the ground, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. The world wavered before him, but Connor forced himself to his feet. More than one man had called him a reckless fool for ordering such an attack, and as the cannonballs fell ever closer, he could not deny the truth of their warnings.

Connor staggered onwards toward the fort, his feet--

_\--flew across the rooftops as he chased after his father. Ratonhnhaké:ton always thought the city of London was much more beautiful from up above, and more than anything, he enjoyed these excursions high above the streets that left him feeling freer than a bird._

_Ratonhnhaké:ton would share muffled laughter and mischievous smiles with Haytham when they outran the local law enforcement, and when they would inevitably find themselves sitting atop the tallest building in the vicinity, his father would tell him about the Templars. Ratonhnhaké:ton listened raptly, eyes wide with admiration, for Haytham was nothing if not the most brilliant storyteller he had ever known, and the best part, he thought, was that everything was true. More than anything, Ratonhnhaké:ton hoped that one day he could be like his father and support the Order as a Knight Templar._

_Order. Direction. Purpose. These ideals would bring about peace, and chaos--_

\--reigned in the streets and in the fort itself. Connor shouted, his voice hoarse, for that bastard Lee to show himself, but no one came. He continued to stumble about, leaning heavily on anything he could get his hands on, and then he heard it: a voice he had once come to associate with gentleness and affection--a voice that still made his throat tighten and his heart clench with sorrow.

Slowly, Connor turned, and there stood his father, the man who had raised him and guided him through the most troubling years of his life, who--

_\--was making the gravest mistake in judgement._

_Ratonhnhaké:ton could not believe that he was (and had been) allying himself to this individual who had killed his mother. Haytham swore up and down that it was not Lee but Washington who had slain the most important woman in both of their lives, but he would not have it. He had seen Lee there that day, had seen the murderous glint in his eyes; his father would understand if he had just been there, if he only knew what sort of man Lee truly was._

_No, this individual who greeted them at Boston Harbor was the source of all their problems. They argued out there in the middle of the street, voices raised and expressions dark with anger, and this was the first time Ratonhnhaké:ton thought his father a fool._

_All the same, he could not bring himself to hate Haytham. No, his loathing was solely for--_

\--Charles Lee was not here.

His father had sent him away out of fear for his life, out of fear for what would become of the Order if he died. Connor had once admired that sort of self-sacrifice, that sort of devotion to the Templar cause, and in a way, he still did. He could still remember when his father had talked to him about finding a purpose, one that he would gladly give up everything for, but sadly, their paths had diverged: one a Templar, the other an Assassin.

Over and over again, they would try to bring the other to their side, but the gap, it seemed, was just too large to bridge. The time had passed them, and their relationship--

_\--never recovered._

_They had continued under the pretense of good relations, and to all those around them, their ploy had worked well. In private, though, the strain between them was immense--tension thick enough to cut and silence so loud that it could drive a man crazy. Haytham still cared for his son and vice versa, but when it came to their values, something had changed when they returned to the Americas--when Ratonhnhaké:ton had at last realized what the men his father had spoken so often of actually were: liars, arsonists, and murderers._

_Days turned into weeks into months, and Ratonhnhaké:ton could not stand it any longer. It pained him that his father would not listen to his words of reason, but it could not compare to the emotions he felt when he removed the Templar ring from his finger and stepped out of Haytham’s life, abandoning all that he had known._

_The look upon his father’s face--_

\--spoke volumes, spoke more than the quietly uttered words that slipped past his lips.

It was an apology and a final plea that they end this, but there was no going back now, no retreat that could save them. Connor did not want this; his father did not want this. What had happened to the peace and tranquility that they had known? What had happened to those afternoons spent crisscrossing the London rooftops?

When had they become so embroiled in this war? Their men had put them upon pedestals, spat upon the relationship that they had once shared, and propelled them toward the end at which they stood now. The Templars and the Assassins--they wanted blood, and they wanted the head of the opposing faction’s leader. Compromise was for the weak and the unfaithful, and so Connor had allowed his hatred for the Templars to grow.

He wondered if his father had gone through the same.

His hand closed around the handle of his tomahawk, and he shouted as he ran, arm raised. Vision blurred, Connor wanted to think it from the wounds he’d already sustained, but he knew all too well that there were tears--

_\--were never shed in the presence of Achilles Davenport._

_Ratonhnhaké:ton had maintained a tight-lipped frown when his Assassin mentor told him that his father must die, and all he had done was dip his head--neither an argument for or against the idea. The other Templars he had no fondness for, no feelings of kindredship toward, but Haytham..._

_His nights were sleepless after that. Ratonhnhaké:ton had sought peace, sought a way to help his people and the other downtrodden, and when the ideals of the Order had failed him, he had looked for another way. Now he could only wonder if the Creed was any better, if this was his purpose--if this was something he would gladly give up his life for._

_Over and over again, his brothers would tell him that this was for the best, but Ratonhnhaké:ton continued to wonder if killing Lee would be enough. He had no quarrel with his father, had no desire to see him--_

\--dying in his arms.

His father had always seemed so unconquerable--an indomitable spirit. How could he--his idol, the man he’d always looked up to--fall so easily? When Haytham’s lips quirked weakly into a smile, Connor knew then, knew that his father had been unable to kill him, not for lack of talent or skill, but because of the bonds of family that still held them together. A bloodied hand came to touch his cheek in a final act of fatherly affection, and then it fell away, limp on the ground.

Stuttering breaths passed his Connor’s lips as he held Haytham, fists curled tight in the man’s blood-soaked clothing. The tears came freely now, came in a way they had not since the death of his mother, and already, he missed him, missed his father, missed the individual who had raised him from child to man.

That person was now dead by his hands.

Cannonfire continued to rain down from the sky, painting the world red with the blood of the fallen and the fires that ravaged the earth--there was so much death today. Connor closed his eyes, wondering: would it matter if there was one more body to bury? The ground shook as shrapnel filled the air, and he decided that no, _no_ , it would not matter if there was.


End file.
